The sell-off in Facebook and Twitter has washed up on China tech shores, pushing shares in national titans such as Tencent down more than a quarter from its peak in January and into bear market territory.
But while sour sentiment over slower user growth has scythed $280bn off the S&P 500 technology sector in the US, Chinese tech stocks are battling additional demons: the trade war being waged by Washington and Beijing; currency depreciation and tightening liquidity.
“The current round of decline in [China’s] entire internet space is more macro driven,” said David Dai, senior analyst at Bernstein Research. Valuations, he added, remained at the higher end of the historic range — not in bubble territory, but enough to make investors “jittery” when negative news strikes.